Beyond the window...translucent rain drops, gathered and held on bright green, rain-washed branches: the day itself is "tea," the very air, steeped in rain: rich summer earth/soil scents, wet fence wood, moist/acrid garden plants, all carried through the open window in an invisible waterfall of cold air that drops with the drips into the tearoom and shifts moist and sweet, unseen, over my face and arms. With this setting, I pour a Jin Xuan (金萱烏龍）sample gathered at the World Tea Expo: 4 grams of rolled leaf in an Andrzej Bero, red clay, 70ml pot, with 95 deg. C water, for six rounds. It's rich, perfumed, starfruit, milk, butter cream, floral combines with the day's rainy scents. The tea stream from pot to pourer gurgles improvised music with the falling rain as steam dances and disappears into the room's cool air.

Today, another sample, this one from Tea Source, a Green Dragon Dong Ding Wulong. The dry, rolled leaf looks wonderful: even sized green nuggets throughout. I pour the tea and it turns out to be somewhat flat, decent, enjoyable, but not as multidimensional as other better Dong Ding greener wulongs I've poured. The post-pour leaves also look great: solid stems with two or three larger leaves and often a bud, not a lot of shake, sturdy and clean edged. Still, the time, sitting, tasting, being present to the subtleties is entirely rich and the tea is good, just not stellar!Tomorrow I'll go back and play with the parameters a bit, see if I can get the tea to wake up a bit more.

Got started with this one, a little late in the evening yesterday, so it had to wait overnight for a full tasting. The first couple of infusions, leaf enough to fill my little yixing Dan Cong pot about 60% full at this point, and water about 195 degrees, were quite brief—pour in, pour out. They showed layers of sweet floral flavor, peach and lychee, quite delicate and lovely, and promising for more tomorrow.

Quite a few more infusions this evening, still mostly quite brief—had to dilute on accidental minute-long infusion several fold to get back to the concentration that makes me happy, and it did make me quite happy. Now up to 12-15? Still sweet, fruity, floral, but not the degree of spiciness that I associate with my favorites of the Dan Congs. More when I've reached the bottom of this tea, but that won't be until tomorrow.

I picked up a couple ounces of Supreme Oolong at Wing Hop Fung a couple months ago and it became one of my favorite teas of the season. I just got 8oz by mail order and I'm enjoying a few leaves thrown into boiling water in a yunomi. Very creamy with a hint of cinnamon.

Yunnan Sourcing Imperial TGY from last spring--almost done with this batch--but the the newly opened package held tea so fresh and lovely that I'm now working through a 2nd round of infusions with more leaf. Mmmm. Contentment in a cup--sweet, floral, wildflower meadows, hints of caramel.

Yes! I've enjoyed the non-puerhs I've gotten from them--some inexpensive, and adequate for daily drinking, and some pricier that lived up to rather different expectations quite well. Some of the cheapest greens were a bit tricky and limited--careful brewing required to get a couple of nice infusions out of them--but I could always manage a couple of nice infusions, and they were cheap. This particular TGY has really scratched an itch this past year.

Origin tea SLX - B (nong xian): I like this one even better than the winter DYL and the Li Shan Hua gang, probably because my taste buds (and stomach) prefer the slightly more oxidised gaoshans. It develops some really nice peachy/pineapple flavours with a smooth aftertaste.

It's been a while since I had an oolong like this, thought I'd never would find another one

We're scheduled for a 104 deg. day here. So I wake and pour tea in the comparable cool of the morning. Today I once again pour the "Taiwan Best Tea." This tea, which I first thought would be my everyday drinking wulong choice turns out to be so good I have started to ration it. I have a fruitful hour long pour using a 100ml Lin's Ceramics teapot. It's a great pour of solid, high mt. wulong, typical of a good light fired wulong from Taiwan with flavor notes that lead me to assume it is a qing xin cultivar.

The last of my 2012 Winter Lishan Cui Feng ( Light Roast) from Origin Tea. It just figures that the last session of this tea I have is the one that I finally zone in and start brewing it very very nicely.